Wine Update

My goal is to put Merlot back on the map. I know, that is a bold statement coming from a guy who drools at pop tarts but the movie Sideways wrecked Merlot for a lot of people and I'm not going to stand by and let this unwarranted alienation of a perfectly good varietal continue, uncontested. I'm going to do something about it. Especially after tasting a '98 Petrus Pomerol last Fall. I really just dripped a drop out of an empty bottle onto my palm and licked it. It tasted like hand with notes of things I had been doing and I will never forget it.

The Nectar Vats

Here is the Merlot I am making with my pal Joe and a highly qualified peanut gallery of real winemakers. It is working while I sleep. Every day in the barrel it is getting a rounder, fuller mouthfeel and a buttery cherry flavor as it muscles through malolactic fermentation, allegedly. I need to stick some toasty oak in the barrels because the ones I used are neutral (aka: old and cheap, like... super cheap). I actually just stripped the barrels off the soapbox car and epoxied the holes. The addition of some good oak will make the wine a little more dynamic. It will taste like it was aged in a nice barrel. Fake the oak.

This is the results of a chromatography test. I like the way it looks.

My plan is to ask a few of my ultra talented pals to design labels for the wine in return for some of the wine. Maybe I will send them a bottle and they can drink it, name it and make a label for it. That way I will feel like I have a bunch of different wines in my cellar because they will all have different labels. But really it will just be a giant stock of minky Merlot that I can give away, bring around and barter with. Black market fun tickets. Tax That!

These are the Merlot grapes that will set things straight.